The Oklo natural nuclear reactors: neutron parameters, age and duration of the reactions, uranium and fission products migrations

Mass spectrometry and isotopic dilution technique are used in order to carry out, on various samples from the fossil nuclear reactors at Oklo, Gabon, isotopic and chemical analyses of some particular elements involved in the nuclear reactions: uranium, lead, bismuth, thorium, rare gases (krypton, xenon), rare earths (neodymium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, dysprosium), ruthenium and palladium. Interpretations of these analyses lead to the determination of many neutron parameters such as the neutron fluence received by the samples, the spectrum index, the conversion coefficient, and also the percentages of fissions due to uranium-238 and plutonium-239 and the total number of fissions relative to uranium. All these results make it possible to determine the age of the nuclear reactions by measuring the amounts of fission rare earths formed, i.e. 1.97 billion years. This study brings some informations to the general problem of radioactive wastes storage in deep geological formations, the storage of uranium, plutonium and many fission products having been carried out naturally, and for about two billion years.